


Home Economics

by daroos



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cookies, Domestic, F/M, childhoods, early education
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daroos/pseuds/daroos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint learned a lot during winter down time in the circus, though mostly he was just looking for a good meal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Economics

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ShinyKari for the superquick beta job.

_Start with the littlest fork to your left_ , Coulson’s voice said over the coms.

 

Clint glanced skyward, as though asking for patience. “I know,” he hissed. “It’s just been a while since I’ve been confronted with a French place setting.”

 

Coulson frowned, staring into the camera feed as though it would wring more information from the image. Clint was undercover at a state dinner. Coulson had been understandably nervous about his street-smart but not generally couth asset’s ability to fit in amongst high society. Clint surprised him. He wielded his cutlery with a surprising expertise, he never once missed wiping his mouth before drinking from his wine glass, and he even seemed to know what was going on regarding his dessert fork versus his cheese knife.

 

 _Very impressive, Agent. After the fiasco in Brunei, I wasn’t expecting that thorough of a memorization of your briefing packet_.

 

The camera feed swung right and left with Clint’s line of sight - a sure sign that Clint was uncomfortably avoiding saying something. _Agent?_ Phil asked.

 

“Nothing. I just see our mark, three o’clock.”

\--

Clint mouthed over Darcy’s shoulder and neck, moving down to where a froth of lace covered the swell of her breasts. His hands were unbuttoning her shirt and his mouth was busy, so she didn’t notice when he got impatient and tugged just the wrong way, and two buttons and a bit of the fancy lace popped off.

 

“Sorry,” he mumbled through a mouthful of her bra, focused even as he apologized.

 

“What? Oh, damn,” she gasped. “This was the rare Fitting-My-Boobs shirt.”

 

“I’ll fix it,” he told her, biting her nipple through the fabric of her bra.

 

The last thing she expected to see the next morning was Clint bent over her blouse, carefully stitching the errant swag of lace back in place. He hummed a Black Sabbath bass riff over and over as he sewed, and like magic, the tidbit of fabric was reattached. He looped a knot with familiar ease and broke the thread with his teeth. His mouth was latched next to the delicate line where her decolletage would sit. He met her eyes almost guiltily.

 

“Damn. Can you cook and clean too?” Darcy asked, with a mischievous grin. His expression flitted through confused, to hurt and closed off.

 

“I said I’d fix it,” he replied guardedly.

 

“Dude - yes, it’s awesome. I can’t sew on a button and you’re like, the ninja master of the sewing needle.” Darcy glanced around and saw a sewing kit of the sort her grandmother would be proud. Thread, mostly dark colors and purples, was laid out in order, and a tomato pincushion sat nearby. In the layer under the thread sat bias tape, seam rippers, velcro and hooks and eyes, and a neat box of buttons.

 

Clint packed his things up quickly and shoved the blouse at her. “I have to get to a briefing,” was all he said before fleeing his own apartment.

 

Darcy ran into Natasha in the common kitchen wearing her repaired blouse. The stitching was almost invisible, and the buttons he had replaced were on more securely than the ones still factory-perfect. Natasha gave her a look that clearly said _I know what you’ve been doing with my partner_.

 

“So Clint is totally a whiz with a needle and thread,” Darcy stated without preamble.

 

Natasha nodded as though she was already well-aware of that fact. “He does all my mending. I sharpen his knives. Before JARVIS I would clean his computer of all the viruses he accidentally downloaded with his pornography.”

 

“That’s like— is it a carney thing?” Darcy asked, referring to the mending, not the porn.

 

Natasha shrugged. “You’d have to ask Clint.”

\--

“No, I’d guess at least twelve to sixteen ounces of boneless protein per Avenger per day.”

 

“Nutritional guidelines state that is well outside of normal parameters, especially given liquid protein consumption amongst the Avengers,” JARVIS replied.

 

Steve stopped, stock still, outside of the common kitchen. Clint and JARVIS were discussing... protein requirements?

 

“If you order with the RDA shit in mind, the guys will go through that in like, three days. Budget on like, fourteen ounces per person per day, and a 3000 calorie diet as a baseline.”

 

“Indeed, sir. Your estimates are in much better agreement with my own projections. Thank you for your input.”

 

Steve made some noise and walked into the kitchen. Clint was leaning back in one of the kitchen chairs, fiddling with a Stark Tablet. “I heard you guys talking,” Steve said. Clint raised an eyebrow. “Where did you learn about provisioning? The circus?”

 

Clint shrugged, “Here and there.”

\--

Tony was drawn into the community kitchen against his will. He’d been up late working on the Mark... whatever... and then late had turned into early morning, and he was going to bed really, but cookies...

 

The smell was a touch of heaven. It said ‘home’ in the way that the smell of warm rubber and diesel said ‘home’. Jarvis, the original Jarvis, had baked cookies for the family occasionally - for Tony, he could admit now. Baked goods appeared from time to time in the community kitchen, but Tony had assumed it was the night staff or someone going to a bakery and bringing back extras. He’d never caught the baking fairy in the act.

 

The baking fairy was singing Kansas, loudly. The baking fairy was wearing an apron printed with a mockup of Thor’s armor. The baking fairy was Clint. He was singing into an ice cream scoop covered in cookie dough.

 

Tony started to try to say several things at once, and only succeeded at staring open-mouthed. Clint struck a pose for an air-guitar power chord, saw Tony, and froze. “Barton...” Tony greeted warily.

 

“Tony,” he replied.

 

“You’re baking. You... bake?”

 

The fruits of his labor were laid out neatly on baking sheets, half of them cooked, half of them still mounded in a doughy limbo waiting to be cooked. Clint pointed the ice cream scoop at Tony like it was a sword. “Don’t you judge.”

 

“I—”

 

“I see you judging! No cookies for judgers.”

 

Tony shut up and sat down at the breakfast bar. Clint finished portioning out the massive tub of cookie dough on the remaining baking sheets with the practiced detachment of someone who’d done it a hundred times. “Where did you—”

 

“No cookies for nosy nellies, either,” Clint warned without looking up from his work.

 

“The current batch has reached optimum cooking time,” JARVIS informed them.

 

Clint switched out the pans, closing the oven with a hip check. He used a spatula to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, and set down two rocks glasses. He poured two glasses of milk, sliding one to Tony, and scootched the cooling rack so it was in between them.

 

The cookies were just as delicious as they had smelled.

\--

“Hey, thanks for the hydrogen peroxide/vinegar suggestion. I never knew anything that could take strawberry jam out of something.”

 

Clint shrugged. “No biggie.”

 

“No, it was.” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck like he was uncomfortable. “I lose enough clothes to the other guy... I was kinda pissed to lose some to strawberry jam.”

 

“Yeah, well. I surprised you. I shouldnt’a been on top of the fridge.”

 

It was Bruce’s turn to shrug. “No biggie,” he echoed. “Hey, where’d you learn that trick, by the way? When I thought about it, with the enzyme detergent, it totally made sense why it lifted out the stain, but you don’t have any science training, do you?”

 

Clint shook his head ‘no’. “I just picked it up here and there.”

\--

“Mr. Barton - if you don’t complete your written assignment you won’t be allowed to participate in the lab component of class today.”

 

The lab component of class was spaghetti with real meat meatballs. Clint really wanted to participate in the lab component of class. His stomach growled in agreement. He stared at the diagram of a sock with a hole. He was supposed to ‘darn’ the sock with pen-strokes and suggest a fiber appropriate given that it was a dress sock. He had studied. He remembered how this went. He could do this. With a few pen strokes he indicated which way the stitches should go and drew a darning ball into the heel of the sock, noted that thin wool or a very narrow cotton thread would probably be best, and turned it in.

 

The home economics instructor gave him a kindly look, and nodded her head towards the aprons. Barton was the only boy in the class, and it was obvious why he’d chosen it as his elective. From what she could tell from his transcripts, he was largely homeless, probably an orphan, and the meals he got at school through the lunch program and her classes were probably the majority of his nutrition.

 

She graded his assignment. With the proper motivation, Barton was a downright good student. That the proper motivation was apparently a warm meal in his belly made her sad, but she would do what she could.  
\--


End file.
